Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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r Sr. - k On The Picket i > line i I II... A WJ I uy /\ woman Writer tA<? Girl Knitter? Strike ______________ NEW YORK.?For thirty-four hours ' I have been a striker. For thirtyfour hours I have struck for higher wages, shorter hours, proper sanitary conditions, the recognition of the United Knitters' union aud the abolishment of child labor, writes Marie Coolldge Rask in the New York Sunday World. As a result I have suffered in mind and body Just what any other girl or woman suffers or Is liable to suffer who strikes for the same or similar ! reasons. I have suffered hardships in order to learn truth, Just as those who were with me have long suffered for what they declare to be a princl- ^ pie. Stories of the hardships endured by ! women strikers at the hands of policemen and others employed by factory owners to oppose them have been many. Hardly a day passes in which some new case is not brought to light in the local police courts. As a rule the sufferer can speak little English. In consequence the re- , cital of her experience Is brief. Its full details seldom reach even the newspaper offices. If they do the? are overshadowed by the countless larger events which are constantly occurring In a city where the pOpillaHnm lo 1 __ I- ry New York. The only way to lift the veil so that the public might learn whether or not the stories were born of hysteria and vivid imagination was to > voluntarily place one's self in a positlon to experience exactly what these girls have said they experienced. Therefore I became a striker. ^ This recital of my experiences Is not intended as a defense of the girls nor an attack upon the police. It is designed as a purely Impersonal, un- i I biased, unprejudiced account of what actually happened to me personally and what was seen and done in my "presence and hearing. Arousing the Pickets. When I entered the union head- j quarters at New Majestic hall, No. 106 Forsythe street, Manhattan, I was welcomed by the committee ( -chairman and told to wait for some girls to come who could speak English. I noticed several rows of chairs facing the walls. Upon one of these lay a youth of perhaps seventeen years, asleep, with his coat for a pil- 1 low. Others In the room had appar- I ently Just arisen from similar uncomfortable couches. The chairman was busy giving instructions to several groups of young men and women, all bf whom looked tired and sleepy. As I seated myself he went over to the soundly sleeping youth and shook him vigorously. "Come, wake up; time to go on duty." he remarked. The curly-haired, brown-eyed strip- ' ling sighed heavily, yawned, then promptly went fast asleep again. For a few moments the chairman continued to give dlrectlonH to the others. then turned to the boy again. "Here, you," he exclaimed, "don't be lasy. You fellows slept hero Inst night-so as to be sure to be on time this morning. Now when I call you you don't want to get up." The sleepy picket sat up and look- | ed about belligerently. "Gee! but I'm tired," he exclaimed. Then he rose stiffly, stretched himself, ran his | hands several times through his .net v jmgt The Girl Strikers Arise at 4 A.M^M curly hair, Rave a hitch to his ! sers, turned in the neck of his ligee shirt, adjusted his cap cai^^^H before one of the mirrors whlc^^^HI the sides of the lmll and loun^^^^B ward the which we were to net as pickets members of the union passed us con oiaun,). nere anu mere one lolterec iu u doorway or In some obscurt corner whefe it was possible, for tht time being, to escape the observatior of the police. As we reached tin corner a young man stepped hastil) up to one of the girls beside me. "Who's the new girl?" he inquirer abruptly, his critical, observant eyet taking in every detail of my appear ance. The girl explained rapidly ii Yiddish. A policeman standing directly ii front of the factory looked in our dl rection and the little group fel apart, some walking down Sprint street and some along the Green< street side of the building. Back anc forth we walked for nearly an hour The number of pickets seemed to in crease. They had evidently beer scattered all around the block. A: the morning grew late and no work ors appeared the several detach ments chanced to meet at the bes point of observation on Spring street As we Joined the others a tall yount man explained for my benefit tha they might as well all return to head quarters. "This shop Is running," he remark ed. "The bosses must have got thi workers here In an automobile be fore six o'clock. They'll probabl) let them out about three o'clock this afternoon. I've been here since si: o'clock myself. 1 know every one o their workers. If any had come alonf since that time I'd have seen them.' Ready for the Meeting. IIy twos and threes the little bod) of pickets turned and slowly made iti way back to the hall on Forsvth< street. During our absence the chair man and his assistants had been dili gent. Fresh sawdust had been sprin kled on the tloor. The chairs hat been arranged in anticipation of tin mass meeting to occur at 10 o'clock The long counter at the rear of th< hall had \been brushed off and on i an aged Russian had arranged J tempting array of pears, rolls ant pretzels. Five minutes after we en tered the hail the scene around tha counter resembled a bargain sale in i department store. The pickets wert having their breakfast. By ten o'clock the hall was wel filled. There was no unseemly noist or disorder. The sociability resein bled that of any large assembly where the majority of those present are young people. Interspersed hen and there were a number of patrl i * y>~ >| Reporting at 6 A. M. archal-looklng men with kindly facei and sad. discouraged eyes who spok( no English, whose memories of Rus sia were darkened by tragedy, lnjus tice and oppression and whose brighi visions of America had been "shat tered by the realization that the high est wages they might expect to re ceive for the support of their families did not exceed five or six dollars i week." So declared the strike leader indicating the elderly men by a com prehenslve gesture. Strikers Addressed In Yiddish. The speeches at the mass meeting were nearly all in Yiddish. Tin union secretary. Miss Jennie Persl ley, sat by me and Invited me to ac company her to the Brooklyn head quarters at Elederkranz hall on Man hattan avenue near Meserole stree that afternoon. I accepted the invlta tion. Miss Perslley could speak Eng lish. She could explain everythinj to me and she would know what par tlcular girls of those present wer< Sufficiently active union wnrlraro *1 warrant their pictures appearing 1 iH print. She selected three Klrls anfl we five went to luncli tORcthofr M * . ' children under slxte? years of age I - and the recognition of the union. 1 Hear Mu3ic and Speeches. ; At Licderkrauz hall about F00 to ; 1.000 people were assembled. There j 1 was music, followed by speeches, j J Then the crowd poured down the r stairway and out into the street. Xonrly all turned their steps in the . 1 direction of Tliroop avenue and Kost ciusko street, where the I.ong Island - Knitting Mills are located. Some \ were to act as pickets. Others went to look on. As one looked bark toi i ward the hull the procession of young - people seemed Interminable. The efl feet was not unlike that of an Easter ; day parade. The procession extendi ed for blocks. Every one appeared 1 pleasant, every one orderly. The ma. Jorlty of the girls were without hats. Many carried parasols. Eight sumi mer dresses and slippers with ColonJ lal buckles were numerous. Jewelry, - even of the cheapest and most flashy - variety, was conspicuous by its abt sence. The promenuders did not go many ' j steps beyond the actual boundaries t ^of the mill property. By twos and - I threes they passed down Throop * Picket Duty at 7 A. M. avenue, around the corner and a - short distance along Kosciusko - street, then turned and retraced their 1 j steps for a block aloug Throop ave; | nue, turned again and repeated the . | process. 5 Police Ready to Make Arrects. ( Th?? iinHornnrronl * - . - ..v- vi cAi;ii(3iiiriii i was Increasing. Tho steady march1 I ing to and fro was growing monoton i oils. One of the girls called attent tion to tho fact that the police were i preparing to make arrests. She in- i i j dicated the patrol w. on drawn up | on Throop avenue just opposite the 1 i entrance to the mills. Every time ? my companion and 1 passed or re | passed a policeman made some rer I mark designed to accelerate our I j steps. Once I pointed toward a cov5 | ered bridge extending back to a bulld | lng in tho rear. The officer was lnj stantly alert. "Get out of that?move along there," he called. "I was only looking at that bridge," I replied. "I don't, care what you were look- 1 lng at," he insisted. "You move | along. If 1 have to speak to you J again I'll arrest you." "Hut 1 have not stopped fifteen seconds," 1 retorted. "Can't I look i where I please?" "No, you can't?not around hero," weh the reply. | With one accord all quickened ' their steps, hoping to be within sight and hearing when the strike-breakers i should be rushed from the mills to : tho waiting automobile which bad i drawn up to the curb and from which I a number of rough-looking men had ! descended. ? ! Someono whispered that tho plain ? clothes men were bringing the workprn nut nf llm mill ?K.? ?..i_ i Naturally I wanted to see. The pat trolman, according to his duty, was quite determined that I should keep i back. Over the heads of those in I front of me I could see nothing until j after the workers had taken their ^ : places In the automobile. 1 was surprised that no attempt was made by ' the strikers to molest them. As the automobile started away a low, derisive murmur arose from the throng. But that was the limit of the dernon? stration made. The strikers hud dej termined to be orderly, and the police - had no chance to make arrests. Glacial Ice Coming. A Norseman who has been reading t the reports of a threatened ice famine - I in some of the big cities along the - Atlantic coast, of the United States is < preparing to carve up one of the gla- i - j clers that are to be found at .he river ? i heads of Norway and bring this frozen 5 commodity to the American market, l There is no apparent reason why Nor1 way glacial ice should not be sold at ' a j>rollt in those cities where the rehas been advanced GIRL HERO JUMPED ON RUNAWAY'S BACK Remarkable Feat Saved the Life of Young Man Driver of Horse. Sharon, Pa.?Frances Heuney. a little country girl of Arthurholt's mills, near this city, at the risk of her own life, saved that of little Frank H?nno ??.- i..... ..i ? ? - wj juuii'iu^ on a runaway horse's back while it was going at full speed. Being agile and a trained horsewoman, she was able to bring the frantic animal to a stop. Here Ib her modest description of her heroic and difficult feat: "I was driving along the Yankee Run road near the Perkins fnrm. There was a young man In the rig just ahead of me. His horse took fright at some metal pipes and wheeled around, upsetting the rig and throwing him directly under it. The horse started In my direction at breakneck speed. I pulled my rig to |J?Ol JS38 "I Managed to Pull Myself Up on the Horse's Back." tho side of the road as quickly as I could and jumped out. When tho horse went by I grasped for the bri die. but missed It. I succeeded in getting hold of the harness and was dragged some distance. In some way I managed to pull myself up on the horse's back. I then reached forward and caught the bridle reins as near the horse's mouth as possible. 1 pulled on the reins and brought the animal down to a trot, and finally to a standstill. "Then 1 tied the horse to a fence and got a piece of rail and raised the wagon off tho young man, who by this time was uncon6ci< us. 1 feared at tho time he was dead, for ho had been dragged some distance under tho wagon. In a short time, however, he rallied and helped me to get the rig straightened around. He was able to drive home. "I thought nothing more of the occurrence until the next day, when the boy's father met me in Sharon and wanted to reward me, for, as he said, saving his boy's life. Of course I refused to take any reward for simply doing my duty." SLEEP WALKER NEAR DEATH Found Swinging From Port Hole of Qhi n Hfflc?r N*arlu HrAv.mmri r / ? in Rescue. New York. With tho si>ectacular rescue from death of a sleep walker on her log book, the Oceanic docked the other day. One night about ten o'clock Steward Adams was putting a fat passenger to bed In a stateroom just under the after well deck when he heard a voice in distress crying: "I'm going! I'm going!" Adams poked his head out of the port hcle and saw a man swinging by his hands from tho port hole of the next stateroom and bumping with every motion of the ship. The steward ran for help. Assistant ^urpeon Kdward Itiley learned tho and calling on several steerage i rs to hold his ankles,, let hlmj^^^Boun over the side of the ship to Adams. Quartermaster Kowe came on and dashed the immigrants H^^Lnot knowing they were holding ^S^^wnrd. They let go of Itiley and ^^^Bilown saw him in the the swinging from I nines v.ere reversed, ;i rope Ld Kiley pulled up Then. Avuh ewung i<> the man in V up hand over hand and > he reached the clock. i?<t was Jack Steele, six^Wiam. Kent, Kngland. trav^Krlca with his sister, GerI^Hars old. All his life he ^Hbjcct to walking in his Hint; to thn sister. he did not wake up until ^Ked over him ua he hung Wirt hole. Btiamea the Fringe. ftrk.?Twelve children wenr noy" suits have been burned r this summer. Coroner's i Pabst says the fringe Is too uiled. Electricity in a Bowl Pre I WASHINGTON.?"Conscience doth If innke cowards of us all." remarked Mr. Shakespeare, which only , shows that Shakespeare, was hep to humanity and wrote a good many 1 things that other people merely ! thought. This philosophy on morals ' may not have been written with a par- j tleular view to Janitors, but there aro Beveral cases In Washington where it ! would apply. There Is one widely dls- ' cussed at the capitol, where It is well known that Superintendent Elliot Woods can leave jewels and precious stones or anything else he happened to have lying around with a perfect looseness, and there is not a laborer I 011 the place who would not walk around the block to avoid going near them. Quite a while ngo the senate laboratory was not the commodious structure it iB now, but merely a private laboratory and workshop for Mr. Woods. He was an electrical expert This Model Shop Was F WHEN the model shop of the Smithsonian Institution was down by tile railroad tracks in South Washington. Marry Hundley and the late Mr. I'almer, who were in the shop, had the unrounding population "hufTaloed" to the extent that it was never necessary lo lock a door. The model shop was rather an eerie place, anyhow, with its atmosphere of plaster of paris, half lismembered bodies and statues and rugs and skins and almost anything else queer that happened to tloat through the museum. There were a lot of life masks in plaster, and the residents of the shop were believed by all the small hoys and many of the! adults of the vicinity to he body matchers and to make their living by questionable and occult arts, including human vivisection. The tiling that tnade the place sa- j red. or rather baleful, to illiterate neighbors was a human skeleton that lived In the back of the shop and that by a simple arrangement of overhead j corns couui lio made to got up off a cbnir and walk Into the shop. There ia 0110 of the clerks up in the war department who Is an amateur naturalist of some attainment, lie Is also a smoker and is in the habit of keeping a small reserve supply of tohaco kn a Jar on his desk, so that he can replenish his pouch if he runs short during the day. Hidden Wealth Lost; Sto\ THK United States has made mil- . lions of dollars through the efforts of thrifty people to place their surplus wealth beyond the reach of ! thieves. Gonts, calves, dogs and other animals have eaten hundreds of rolls of bills that would have been far safer In banks. Parlor stoves also appear to bo a protltable source of loss. Hut for tho work of the redemption division of tho treasury department the loss in many cases would be total. As It is much of tho money is re- ! deemed, but to dato Uncle Sain is $14,000,000 richer than he would have been had he never issued paper money. Millions of the fractional currency notes have been offered for redemption und together with later issues, are Congressman Drove a Mul IT IS not often that a mule will helpj a man to fp-t into congress, but this very thing happened in the caso of | William N. Maltz, who represents the ! Twenty-second Illinois district, tie Is i the man who succeeded Representative Hodenb'Tg. i Halt/, is a farmer, and he Is proud j of it In his youth he was offered an opportunity to obtain a college educa- i tlon. but ho declined, saying that he proferrod to devote his time to his farm. So he wont to work and farmed : right up to the minute that it became ne^essjary for him to come to congress. Furthermore, lie will farm i some more, whenever congress ad- J Jourr.s. Thoro were those people in his district who were politically opposed to him that thought it would be n fine scheme to expose the fact that he i drove a mule around home, and they spread this "scandal" far and wide. ! After the story had been going the 1 rounds for two or three woeks Haltz j I was called on one night down at (telle- j 1 vUio to make his first political speech, j ttects a Bunch of Coin then, as he Is now, and was always fooling with anything from wireless to high frequency currents. He no iici-u ai one time that a good many of his small personal possessions disappeared If he did not lock them up.' and as he seldom thought to lock anything up. the lost list Increased to an annoying extent. One day he built a large lyden Jar out of a big china bowl and a little tin foil. Ho dropped a lot of pennies and nickels and dimes into It and charged It with enough "Juice" to kill an ox tnaybe. or at least enough to make the ox think he had been killed. He left it on a sheet of glass and walked off. leaving the door of the laboratory opeu. It was not long before one of the outside laborers slipped in and took a look around. That bowl of small chnngo was an irresistible temptation, and he evidently thought a few would not be missed. He ran his hand into the bowl, but before he could grasp a nickel he felt ub though some one had hit him on the funny gone with an ax. Ho gave a wild yell and lauded in tho middle of the property yard. Since that time it has been well and generally known that Mr. Woods "puts conjures" on anything that belongs to him and you could not hire anybody at the capltol to touch a thing of hts. lather an Eeria Place He found, finally, that It was Impossible to keep any tobucco on hand and whenever he wanted It In a hurry the jur was sure to have been emptied. The Inhabitants of Ireland have nothing on the Hons of Ham when It coines to dreading snakes. 'All snakes look alike to them and they are all deadly, merely because they are snakes, quite regardless of the species. The clerk knew this quite well and. carefully wnshlng out the tobacco dust from the jar, ho one day dropped a perfectly hurmless grass snake Into it and put on the lid. That afternoon he stayed late with a draftsman who was working overtime In an ndjolning room. About 5:110 there was an agonized yell from the neighborhood of his desk and one of the Janitors passed through the room In a blinding cloud of dust and took the stairs three at a time without waiting for tho elevator. Is Worst Offender either lost or hoarded up by curio collectors. Dogs, catB, pigs, goats and calves appear to be the chief offenders when It comes to eating paper bills. Recently the redemption division was compelled to examine the stomach of a dog that had swallowed a $20 bill dropped by his owner. The bill was thought to be worth tnnro than dog. bo tho animal was killed. Calves mutilate puper money worse than any other animal. Goats appear to give It a "lick and a promise" and Bwallow the whole roll. Men in the redemption division assert that in cases where animals swallow bills the proper course is to get the bills as soon as posible and to ship the whole mass to Washington to be unfolded and tested as to its genuineness. I>ecidedly the larger part of money sent to Washington for redemption is said to have been mutilated by tire. The parlor stove is a great source of loss. During the Bummer months money is concealed in the stove and in the fall is sent up In smoke in the llrst fall fire. e and Was Proud of It 'Some of my political opponents Bay that 1 drive a mule," he said. "You bet 1 drive a mule! He's a good mule, too. I don't supposo there's a better mule in southern Illinois. I'm not ashamed of that mule, and I'm not ashamed that I'm a farmer, either. Rome folks try to bollttlo mo by saying that I wear a hickory shirt. You bet I wear one! I'm not ashamed of that, either. I'm a farmer and I'm an honest one. and If you send me to Washington I'll be an honest congressman, too!" The speech made a hit with the audience and the newspapers said that it was one of the best that had bean delivered during the campaign.